My name is George Counts. You could call me an author, philosopher, activist, principal or teacher. I have always been interested in education. I went to Baker University and graduated in 1911 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. I was anxious to get into the public schools and start teaching. See I believe that that we can build a new social order and it starts with the children of this day. In school I used a teaching method taught by John Dewey and Francis W. Parker called, child-center learning. This philosophy of education stops the failing passive learning of our time. It engages children where they are interested. It is pure common sense, if you are interested you will pay more attention to the material and as you pay more attention you learn more. Not all children are on the same so it does take more effort from the teachers, but the results will change this world.
I taught in a public school for one year then returned to graduate school. For my graduate studies I focused on sociology under Albion W. Small. Most students would have taken psychology, but I am not like most students. I wanted to know how people act and learn in a society and see if I could harness it. After obtaining my doctorate I taught in the several different universities including; Harris Teachers College, University of Washington, Yale, University of Chicago and in Columbia University.
During my teaching career I became involved in politics, as should all teachers. I helped found the Liberal Party, because the people were clearly not being represented by the Democratic party. The democratic party is not socialist enough for me. Also, I helped build the first teacher's union. This organization was created to protect one of the most sacred jobs from administration that would be unfair and restrictive. From 1940 to 1973 I was a member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). During this time I saw many overreaches in our society on the liberties of men and women. I think that if teachers are given the power they can construct our children's minds to one day defeat conservatism and it's resistance to change.
I am most famous for my book called Dare the School Build a New Social Order. This book is the culmination of three speeches I gave in 1932 about the direction of progressive education in the American school system. I propose that schools use their power of influence to help catalyst the need of social reconstruction. In our age we have technologies that are far beyond the advances of any other time in history. With the help of technology we are producing more food than has ever been produced in human history and yet people are still starving! Schools should use the power that has been given to them by society and leverage that to serve social justice. There was no recording device present when I gave these speeches so I was decided to reenact the speech click on the link below to listen. If you have have a listening impairment I have also provided the script for the speech.
My name is George Counts. You could call me an author, philosopher, activist, principal or teacher. I have always been interested in education. I went to Baker University and graduated in 1911 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. I was anxious to get into the public schools and start teaching. See I believe that that we can build a new social order and it starts with the children of this day. In school I used a teaching method taught by John Dewey and Francis W. Parker called, child-center learning. This philosophy of education stops the failing passive learning of our time. It engages children where they are interested. It is pure common sense, if you are interested you will pay more attention to the material and as you pay more attention you learn more. Not all children are on the same so it does take more effort from the teachers, but the results will change this world.
I taught in a public school for one year then returned to graduate school. For my graduate studies I focused on sociology under Albion W. Small. Most students would have taken psychology, but I am not like most students. I wanted to know how people act and learn in a society and see if I could harness it. After obtaining my doctorate I taught in the several different universities including; Harris Teachers College, University of Washington, Yale, University of Chicago and in Columbia University.
During my teaching career I became involved in politics, as should all teachers. I helped found the Liberal Party, because the people were clearly not being represented by the Democratic party. The democratic party is not socialist enough for me. Also, I helped build the first teacher's union. This organization was created to protect one of the most sacred jobs from administration that would be unfair and restrictive. From 1940 to 1973 I was a member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). During this time I saw many overreaches in our society on the liberties of men and women. I think that if teachers are given the power they can construct our children's minds to one day defeat conservatism and it's resistance to change.
I am most famous for my book called Dare the School Build a New Social Order. This book is the culmination of three speeches I gave in 1932 about the direction of progressive education in the American school system. I propose that schools use their power of influence to help catalyst the need of social reconstruction. In our age we have technologies that are far beyond the advances of any other time in history. With the help of technology we are producing more food than has ever been produced in human history and yet people are still starving! Schools should use the power that has been given to them by society and leverage that to serve social justice. There was no recording device present when I gave these speeches so I was decided to reenact the speech click on the link below to listen. If you have have a listening impairment I have also provided the script for the speech.
Speech
Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive
Text of the speech
Dare Progressive Education Be Progressive
Extra Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Counts
http://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/nadams/educ692/Counts.html
Presentation
During my presentation with your class it was asked where I pulled the the statistic about Cincinnati having a 53.1% poverty rate among children.
http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-5372-cincinnati_ranks_no_2_for_highest_child_poverty.html